Archbishop of Atlanta decides to sell his $2.2 million mansion

Sunday

Apr 6, 2014 at 12:01 AMApr 6, 2014 at 3:15 PM

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Atlanta, who has been criticized for lavish spending of church money, said yesterday that he has decided to sell the $2.2 million mansion he has been using as his official residence.

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Atlanta, who has been criticized for lavish spending of church money, said yesterday that he has decided to sell the $2.2 million mansion he has been using as his official residence.

Money from the sale of the Tudor-style home in an exclusive neighborhood will be used for "the needs of the Catholic community," Archbishop Wilton Gregory said in a statement.

Gregory has been heavily criticized by many inside and outside the church for spending money to build the mansion, and he wrote in a newspaper article last week that he took his "eye off the ball" after the archdiocese received a $15 million donation from the estate of Joseph Mitchell, a nephew of Gone With The Wind author Margaret Mitchell.

Pope Francis has been urging Roman Catholic officials to live simpler lives and has renounced the papal apartments in the Vatican palace for modest quarters.

Yesterday, Gregory, 66, said he plans to leave the new home in early May and possibly move into a smaller property owned by the archdiocese.